| Political offices in the UK government |
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| List of political offices |
The parliamentary under-secretary of state (or just parliamentary secretary, particularly in departments not led by a Secretary of State) [1] is the lowest of three tiers of government minister in the UK government, immediately junior to a Minister of State, which is itself junior to a Secretary of State. [2]
| Ministers of the Crown (Parliamentary Secretaries) Act 1960 | |
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| Act of Parliament | |
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| Long title | An Act to replace the existing limits on the numbers of Parliamentary Secretaries in individual departments by a single aggregate limit; to authorise the payment of a salary to a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Science; and to increase the salary of the Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms. |
| Citation | 9 & 10 Eliz. 2. c. 6 |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 20 December 1960 |
| Other legislation | |
| Amended by | |
Status: Partially repealed | |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
| Text of the Ministers of the Crown (Parliamentary Secretaries) Act 1960 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk. | |
The Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975 (c. 27) provides that at any one time there can be no more than 83 paid ministers (not counting the Lord Chancellor, up to 3 law officers, and up to 22 whips). Of these, no more than 50 ministers can be paid the salary of a minister senior to a Parliamentary Secretary. Thus, if 50 senior ministers are appointed, the maximum number of paid Parliamentary Secretaries is 33. [3] [4]
The limit on the number of unpaid Parliamentary Secretaries is given by the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975, ensuring that no more than 95 government ministers of any kind can sit in the House of Commons at any one time; there is no upper bound to the number of unpaid ministers sitting in the House of Lords. [4] [5] [6]
The position should not be confused with the Permanent Secretary, which is the most senior civil servant in a government department (also known as the Permanent Under-Secretary of State), nor with a Parliamentary Private Secretary (an MP serving as an assistant to a minister entitled to directly relevant expenses but no further pay). [2] [7]
Of his tenure as an under-secretary in Macmillan's 1957–1963 Conservative government from the Lords, the Duke of Devonshire noted: "No one who hasn't been a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State has any conception of how unimportant a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State is". [8]
There are 44 Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State, of whom six are unpaid.
The current Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State are: [9]
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